Minimally invasive medical techniques are aimed at reducing the amount of extraneous tissue that is damaged during diagnostic or surgical procedures, thereby reducing patient recovery time, discomfort, and deleterious side effects. The average length of a hospital stay for a standard surgery may also be shortened significantly using minimally invasive surgical techniques. Thus, an increased adoption of minimally invasive techniques could save millions of hospital days, and millions of dollars annually in hospital residency costs alone. Patient recovery times, patient discomfort, surgical side effects, and time away from work may also be reduced with minimally invasive surgery.
To view a surgical site, an endoscopic camera with an illumination means may be inserted into a patient's body to capture color images of the surgical site. The color images of the surgical site may be shown to a surgeon on a monitor or a display.
Additional image information of the surgical site may be simultaneously displayed to the surgeon by use of a picture in picture (PIP) display. The additional image information may be useful to the surgeon to improve the surgical outcome. However, the smaller picture of a PIP display may be too small to show a desirable level of detailed information. Moreover with separate image frames, a surgeon mentally fuses the two separate images or imaging modalities together, which can be fatiguing. Alternatively, additional image information may be shown full screen by switching back and forth between the color images and the alternate additional image being displayed on the display device. However, switching back and forth between images takes time and can make surgery less efficient as a result. Moreover, a surgeon may fail to switch back to white light imaging and cut more than necessary or accidentally damage vital tissue while in an alternate imaging mode.
It is desirable to provide more efficient and safer minimally invasive surgery.